Raf kinase inhibitor protein: a putative molecular target in prostate cancer

Each year in the United States, prostate cancer kills over 40,000 men, and over 200,000 new cases are diagnosed, making it the second most common cancer and the second most common cause of cancer deaths among males. Unfortunately, the best available diagnostic tests are substantially less than 100 percent sensitive and specific, and many men have incurable prostate cancer at the time of diagnosis which created the need for the development of new drugs to reduce prostate cancer risk. Raf kinase inhibitor protein (RKIP), a member of the phosphatidyl ethanolamine binding protein (PEBP) family, is a small cytosolic protein associated with signal transduction pathways. RKIP is a suppressor of metastases, which paved the way for structural and functional efforts towards drug development; here we describe the molecular modeling of RKIP that should provide a structural framework on which the design of specific inhibitors may be based.